Begin: It was as though alien forces overcame me and got in my hands and made me type this...

00:16 [Reads] Although not distinguished as such by its common dalliers, there are two aspects extant regarding the desire for a more stable consciousness: The verbal, oft-times poetic, mysterious, glamorous, exciting thinking and talking about it and the prosaic, right-now, hands-on effort it takes to achieve it. This is no condemnation of the former, but its distinction must be recognized for the latter to be realized.

00:59 [Reads] As with all forms of entertainment in the human realm, there are always more fans on the sidelines enjoying the game vicariously than there are actual players on the field. And the game of awakening is no exception. My view is, enjoy yourself; enjoy the game. But periodically lay down your program, cease your cheering and booing, clear your head and be fully aware once again of precisely why you sought out this event in the first place.

01:38 [Reads] There's no benefit whatsoever in not enjoying life, but to see for yourself what is actually going on you must have a constant awareness of the distinction between what is essential and what is merely entertaining.

01:54 [Reads] The illness of meaningless mental selection has two parts. One is your approval and disapproval of how your mind perceives things to be. And the other is in your accepting or rejecting how other people say that they perceive things to be.

02:14 [Reads] To be or not to be is not the question. The real question is, "When are you going to get over it?"

02:24 [Reads] A quite ancient description of the enlightened state of mind was thus: "A mind craving nothing." Which I could translate as referring to a mind not locked in a meaningless struggle between mental likes and dislikes, approvals and disapprovals.

02:49 [Reads] A man with a mind constantly engaged in a senseless cheering and booing is a man who will never get to the bottom of things and understand the game.

03:03 [Reads] A strange visitor to a monastery was invited to address the monks and had these words: "What you people call 'sleep' I think of as simply a synonym for 'introspection.'" And the head of the order instantly stood and retorted, "But surely you do not mean that literally?" To which the visitor reacted, "Alright -- 'useless introspection.'" And the elder smiled and said, "Ah! That's better." And being but a transient guest, the speaker decided not to point out aloud that ALL introspection is useless -- regarding the aim his audience had in mind.

03:54 [Reads] Some years later the visiting speaker noted to his own son that all confusion and delusion results from introspection and that the course an alert man should pursue is not one of either introspection or extrospection, but the way of non-spection -- emptiness. Which actually could be termed "uni-spection" in the sense of symbolising that one's perception is universal and that one's consciousness does not make the erroneous distinction between the in-here of itself and the out-there of everything else; the very illusion supported by so-called introspection.

04:48 I got perverse enjoyment today, when the spirit made me write that, of imagining some decent, well-bred would-be mystic hearing that and trying to make sense of it.

05:06 [Reads] Part of the common sward in man's strictly human realm is in people disagreeing about how things are in the world. And in being non-physical and thus beyond the grasp of objective measurements, this is prime territory for debate and disagreement -- that is, the human realm.

05:27 [Reads] A man awake is actually a pretty simple thing. It is a man who is not stuck to his mind -- which is always stuck to agreeing and disagreeing as to how things are in the world of man. But an awake man is one who casually looks past all of this and just sees things as they are. And he knows that if you comment on how things are they are no longer how they are but are now something else. They are now part of a dream your mind is having.

06:11 [Reads] Question: How unalert does a man have to be to argue with his own mind over the propriety and credibility of a dream?

06:26 [Reads] Although there may be no objective shame of being of ordinary mind, there perhaps should be.

06:37 [Reads] First thing every morning as soon as all the family was gathered around the breakfast table one father would cry out, "What is colder than yesterday's toast, less nourishing than overcooked food, emptier than a love affair that has run its course?" And all the kids would shout back in glee, "Words that previously awakened me!"

07:07 [Reads] I happen to know for a fact that this same father plans to one day present a new question to his brood. When the time is right he is going to ask them why no one seems to realize that the activity required to 'calm the mind' is the same kind of activity that you're trying to stop when you decided to try to calm the mind.

07:30 [Reads] Ask yourself, "What would be the ultimately insightful man's view of the matter?" Is he trying to actually put the mind at rest or trying to learn how to peacefully live with a mind that is never at rest?

07:45 [Reads] In the game of enlightenment vs. illusion if you take sides, you lose.

07:58 [Reads] The restlessness of the mind is much taken up with its comments regarding what it approves of and disapproves of in the realm of strictly human affairs. To be enlightened and to see things as they are all you need do is cease approving or disapproving of the meaningless affairs in the strictly human arena. Being asleep, deluded, captive and stupid is bad enough. But to be so concerning matters that are totally irrelevant -- well.......

08:33 [Reads] One man poured oil in his wind-up pocket watch to make time run faster. Anyone who dismisses this as foolishness simply reveals their ignorance of how the mind runs.

08:55 [Reads] A boy slipped deftly alongside his dad and said, "It strikes me that it's not even necessary to stop thoughts. All that's needed is to stop thoughts of approval and disapproval of the lives men lead." His father struck a pose of reflection, rubbing his chin, rolling his eyes about then finally said, "Okay, but add one thing: turn away from your disapproving of your mind's approval and disapproval of other men and the lives they lead."

09:37 [Reads] As told in a long-forgotten myth, there was once a good universe in whose evil twin we reside. And it made clear to all its transient inner components this fact: When your ability to think becomes activated, the world in which you find yourself is as it is. And as you age and become either smarter or dumber, things remain as they are. And then, in the very circumstances surrounding your final breath, things are still as they are regardless of what you go out thinking.

10:26 [Reads] Why not turn loose of the illusion now; now at a time that will do you some good?

10:37 [Reads] Long ago someone said, "A man who knows what is going on is left with nothing to do, and yet there is nothing in his life that is not done." which I would translate as an early attempt to take note of the question concerning whether man has some control over his life.

10:58 [Reads] The mind seems to have many and varied questions but there is one that it never poses ingenuously.

11:09 [Reads] The search for 'the truth' is unnecessary. What you do is abandon the absurd.

11:28 [Reads] Your own self-condemnation is dependent on your mind's own continual entanglement with approving of or rejecting other people's action in the human arena. The rock-hard reality behind the idea of 'Condemn your neighbor, condemn yourself' is understood by but a few. The problem is not with other people's lives; the problem is not even with your opinion of their lives. The only solvable problem is in your not understanding the natural game of the mind. To what lower level must a man's intelligence fall for him to believe that it is meaningfully reprehensible to favor hockey over rugby; or God over Allah; or my delusions over yours? To be "right" is not the goal. To get over it is!

12:36 [Reads] Come over here with me for a moment. Cock your head a little sideways and take a look at a certain matter from another angle. There is no and cannot be any distinction between a man's normal self and his circumstances. His self IS his circumstances in that a man has no fixed, permanent self in his mind, his seems to be whatever present circumstances cause it to be. Sincere observation will readily show this to be true. And after that how can any man still feel a distinction between himself and the rest of Life?

13:20 [Reads] Struggling to 'live in the moment' is not the only way to go about it. You can also just turn loose the illusion that you ARE someplace else just because your mind thinks that it is.

13:39 [Reads] And another boy asked his father, "Is it fair to say that an enlightened mind is one that has no preference as to how things are out in life regarding other people?" And his larger version replied, "You left out one part: That an enlightened mind also has no preference regarding whether it is enlightened or not." The lad didn't bother to say that he couldn't yet grasp the full significance of this statement inasmuch as if he could, he wouldn't have asked a question regarding an enlightened mind to begin with.

14:11 [Reads] And now some beach music news: Only those who imagine they're drowning believe that they're drowning.

Oh, all right. Due to one lifeguard's long face, I'll repackage it for you.

No one is asleep unless they think that they're asleep and no one can awaken without first thinking that they're asleep. It is to awaken from a dream that was not even a dream to begin with but was rather the dream of a dream.

15:00 For you people on tape, I'm trying to just stare them down. Sometimes you can do that and pick out the right kind of person, someone who perhaps is not feeling well, looks a little sickly. Just look around the herd and if you stare 'em then very often they'll take a look on their face and kind of nod like, "Oh yeah. Now I get it." And of course they don't but it makes me feel somewhat better. I had no idea I was such an idiot.

15:30 [Reads] A peripatetic practioner of root medicine -- not the application of medicine made of roots, but rather the treatment solely of roots -- one day stopped in a village populated entirely of men struggling for the enlightened state of mind and at their request addressed them on the matter. His words were thus: "Most of the time men's minds have nothing of significance with which to occupy themselves. Thus, most of the time men's minds are occupied with things of no significance. Easy observation of the human race shows that having your mind occupied mostly by matters of no significance does a man no harm. My question is, 'What gives with you people?' And don't bother; I'll show myself out of town."

16:30 [Reads] And finally, rumored to be the greatest of all approaches to that special goal was one that went by the title of "Case dismissed."

16:45 To keep you people in Tapeville up to date, my staring is having very little effect here in person. I think I have wandered into Madame Tussaud's.

17:08 I can't resist picking on the one that I was hoping would cause a rebellion. It should. That was a guy who was asked to address this monastery...I had great faith in that. Maybe some of the people out there in Tapeland a few weeks from now will become outraged, maybe pop a metaphysical blood vessel and maybe wake up a little over this one. Because it can't be true; can it? But it is true. I especially delighted in the word, 'introspection'. It sounds so intelligent and it sounds so in line -- if I had been listening to me all these years, I would think, "Well, it sounds so in line with my mental approach."...that a man cannot awaken unless he has full, continual consciousness of his own consciousness...[that] if you're studying anything other than the mind, you're on the wrong track...so, how can it be true...what he said...that...sleep...is caused by one thing, introspection?...

21:18 At the end I noted...what was needed was neither [intro- or extrospection]...what was needed was non-spection.

22:11 What carried me away...was how obscenely insulting it was when it came to me that the source of all confusion was introspection...

23:16 I can still quite truthfully say that...you can't get anywhere unless you engage in a relentless, sincere [static]...introspection...if you're going to live, as the majority of the six billion people on this planet do, that is, with their attention being held by external events...that is the norm for routine people...

26:10 God, I'm disappointed. I thought sure some of you would really be upset -- or look more confused...

26:26 The cause of sleep, past a certain point, is the struggle to awaken...

27:20 I'm not limiting it to people attempting to awaken...if no human engaged in introspection; if that was not part of his constant mental repertoire, part of the workings of the brain then there would be no term for being asleep...

28:21 You would not be asleep if you were not 'a thoughtful person'.

28:33 "So, you're saying to be just a complete...shit kicker would be to be awake; is that what you're saying?" And the answer is no...you're still picking and choosing. Or you're still stuck with your own mind which will forever pick and choose...to your mind, the only way it operates is, "Well, it's got to be one or the other." That alone should be the final word some of you hear as you fall off the edge into the abyss...

30:35 "It's got to be one or the other." And when you're falling you realize, "No it don't." (Of course then that gets sticky because if you were falling and thought "No it don't" you would stop in mid-air and probably spring up on a metaphysical bungee cord and it would take you back and you'd realize, "I shouldn't have thought that.")

31:02 I still personally loved the way I was insulted and assaulted by realizing that the cause of all confusion is introspection...You've got to start there, but I can tell you this: You will never stop doing that.

31:39 Or for those of you trying to keep track in some way -- I was going to say, "You've got to realize that you can't figure things out." But I've already put it to you in another form. You can figure everything out except one thing, as far as I'm concerned, to my own dim-witted, ordinary brain satisfaction...the human collective intelligence...I have figured everything out...except one thing. And through great introspection...I would say that a man can figure out and almost understand everything having to do with human life, except one thing...

33:20 That is the difference between most of the...mystics of which you have read or heard...part of...the credentials of a world-class, world-famous, well-known mystic is he understands everything...he's going to lose his world standing if he finally announces, "By the way, there is one thing I still don't understand"...

34:01 Everyone's mind believes it can understand everything.

34:12 See if this is any more annoying: All forms of self analysis are delusive. There is no such thing as accurate self analysis...There is no such thing as useful self analysis.

34:51 Are we in the dog days of summer or did I inadvertently wander into the senility home for ex mystics? It's good that I found you people in the prime of your senility...

35:27 Let's try this one -- same thing, different overcoat. There is no distinction and there cannot be any distinction between a man's self and his circumstances. A man's self is his circumstances...that's the whole point of struggling to awaken; is it not? It's so that what you are is not dictated by god-damned circumstances! Get over it.

36:19 Well of course if you believe that there is a difference between your ordinary sleeping self and an awakened self...between Buddha mind and everyday mind, then what I just said is farcical...under ordinary conditions, routine man's mind, self, life is more or less dictated by circumstance...

38:30 The whole point, the struggle to awaken is a struggle to extract yourself from being a total victim of circumstance. That an awakened mind....does not respond to what goes on...that an enlightened man is not driven by the whims of fortune in the external world; that it matters not to him...except, I repeat: you've got no self that's separate from circumstances. Don't jump in and say, Yeah! That's what I'm trying to get over." I say, "Get over that."

39:40 Can you consider the possibility that no one, including so-called awakened men, has a self that is not the equivalent of his circumstance...

40:07 You won't get it if you still believe that there is a quantifiable difference between...the self I was born with and an awakened self...

40:44 You only have one mind. You only have one consciousness. But withstanding the possibility that anybody sitting here right now fully understands that...a man's ordinary self is the same thing as circumstances....

41:34 It doesn't take any great mental shakes...to simply see...that your self is the same thing as your circumstances.

42:04 To believe that your self is in anyway separate from your circumstance is just insanity...

43:32 The circumstances made me want to get mad...but, in that I am constantly...on the alert for such as that, always attempting to stay awake, be more conscious...I struggled against those circumstances wanting to raise my ire...

44:59 You don't realize that the energy, the effort, the activity in your head required for you to struggle against useless mental activity, to struggle to try and produce a calm mind is the same kind of god-damn activity that you decide to struggle against that upsets the mind!...

45:41 I say that a man's self is the same thing as the circumstance...they're Siamese twins...and if you don't watch it, your mind will say, "Alright, under ordinary sleeping mechanical conditions you could be correct. I've seen that happen"..."If I am not engaged in continual introspection, self awareness...

47:31 What made you try and suppress it?...

47:44 To pass it off that you're not asleep just because you're all tied up in and entangled in trying to awaken...I don't know what you think counts.

48:01 Or to say, "When I am struggling to awaken and not react to the circumstances then my self at that moment is not the same as the circumstances. If I was asleep then my old sleeping self..." -- You're right. It's like it's tied to a pulley, to circumstance. Whatever happens outside of me my old sleeping self just responds to in predictable, apparently programmed ways. "But," says your mind, "since I've undertaken to awaken that doesn't happen all the time, praise be! Because sometimes circumstances will change in such a way that I want to react in a mechanical mannersand I'll catch myself and I'll struggle against reacting in that manner." Say what it is! The mind won't say and I go ahead and I struggle still and I'm reacting to circumstances, but I call it something else and pretend that I'm doing better.

49:12 Well, if nobody's going to get irritated enough to be outraged and maybe wake up, I'm going to stop. Am I losing my touch or is everybody awake? Is everybody awake while sitting here with your eyes half closed?...I'm so awake that this just has no further meaning to me..That's it. Now we're getting somewhere.

Jan Cox

Enlightenment is promised by many, but few dare work for it. You may have heard of zen, sufi, 4th way or The Work of Gurdjieff, but if what they promise is what you must have - then you are going to have to insist on it. Jan Cox recorded 3,300 talks, and we have archived them as well as all of his writings.

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